ANNUAL REPORT ON GOVERNMENT MEASURES FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES (SUMMARY) 2003

Chapter 1.Comprehensive Approach to Measures for Persons with Disabilities

With the Basic Programme for Persons with Disabilities and the Plan for Persons with Disabilities both ending in FY2002, a Panel to Discuss the New Basic Programme for Persons with Disabilities was organized, with the Chief Cabinet Secretary serving as chairman. Studies were then carried out by teams from the various ministries/agencies involved. The result was a new Basic Programme for Persons with Disabilities scheduled to start from FY2003 and endorsed by the Cabinet on 24 December 2002; the Five-Year Plan for Implementation of Priority Measures was also approved on the same day by the Headquarters for Promoting Measures for Persons with Disabilities.
Revision of the conditions for disqualification for persons with disabilities has also been pursued.
On the final year of the "Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons," Japan hosted the High-level Intergovernmental Meeting to Conclude the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons 1993-2002, sponsored by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP), from 25 to 28 October 2002 in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture.
To improve welfare services from a user's standpoint for persons and children with physical or intellectual disabilities, a transition was made in April 2003 from a measure-oriented system under which the administration specified the recipients of services and decided on the nature of the services to be provided, to a new user-oriented system ("assistance benefit supply system") under which persons with disabilities, on an equal partnership with the service provider, select services for themselves and conclude contracts for the use of these services.

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